The Ghana Education Service has begun talks with the West African Examination Council (WAEC) for the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to be scheduled for September/October 2021.
It also recommended that the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) should also take place in November 2021.
According to the Director-General for GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, these dates will allow students to adequately prepare for the exit exams.
“Per our arrangements, we expect that the next exams will be written in September/October, and we have already started discussions with WAEC on that.”
Addressing the media on January 4, 2021, to update them on measures put in pace for the reopening of schools as announced by the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, Prof. Opoku-Amankwa stated that “in drawing up the all-year-round calendar, what we took into consideration was the contact hours especially for those who will be writing exams and per our calculation, the period that they stayed home till the period that they will be writing exams will be about 1,701 hours. ”
He added that the most appropriate dates for these exams will be September/October for WASSCE and November for BECE.
“We needed to make provision for marking and release of exam results and reopening so if we decide on October/November, it will be difficult for WAEC to release exams early enough for admissions to take place in January.”
“So, per our calculation, we have proposed September /October, and we noticed that when we use these dates, we would have covered 1,700 hours and will only be short of one-hour contact period which we can always make up for,” he added.
Ghanaian students at all levels of education will be returning to school this month, January, as part of the government’s strategic efforts to ease the COVID-19 induced restrictions on educational activities.
Basic school students from Kindergarten (KG) to Junior High School (JHS) will resume their classroom activities from Friday, January 15, 2021.
Continuing Senior High School (SHS) students will go back to school on January 18, 2021.
However, first-year SHS students are expected to begin school on March 10, 2021.
Tertiary students will return to lecture halls from Saturday, January 9, 2021.